By IANS,
Sydney : HIV incidence has increased by almost 50 percent over the past eight years in Australia, infecting as many as 1,051 people by 2007 from 718 in 1999, according to a report.
The University of New South Wales (UNSW) report sheds light on migrants and returning expat Australians. It shows that in 2007 one in 10 newly-reported infections in Australia were originally diagnosed overseas.
People born in sub-Saharan countries, now residing in Australia, have substantially higher rates of HIV/AIDS diagnosis than among Australian-born people, reflecting Africa as the epicentre of the global HIV epidemic, reports Sciencealert.com.
Sixty percent of cases of infection attributed to heterosexual contact were in people from high prevalence countries or their sexual partners.
The findings are contained in the ‘HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis and sexually transmissible infections in Australia’ annual surveillance report. It has been prepared by researchers from UNSW’s National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research (NCHECR) for the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing.